Mind Metaphors That Shape Beliefs, Safety Beliefs
The idea that the human brain is computational is recent and is reinforced in language by the interchange of computational metaphor. Prior to computers, the human brain was equated to other technical advances that Winston calls ‘mechanemorphism’ (Winston, B 2002, Media, technology and society: A history from the telegraph to the internet, Routledge, London).
As far back as Hippocrates (450-370 BC) humans have been compared to machine-like functioning. Hippocrates’ four ‘humours’ were equated to the idea of an ancient water clock and hydraulic engineering. The nature of bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, black and yellow bile) was attributed to hydraulic functioning. They were also equated to the nature of changes in human emotions.
Aristotle (384-322 BC) used the metaphor of a blank tablet to the idea of the human Mind and brain. In this sense, knowledge was connected written and spoken discourse.
By the time of Descartes in the 1600s the human mind was connected to machine metaphors and this suited the idea that there was ‘machine-like’ operations in how humans worked. Descartes also helped create the separation of brain from the body and elevated its central role in decision making.
Later the brain linked to electric telegraphy, switchboards and networks and these became popular metaphors for you the brain and nervous system worked. Similarly, the idea of mental breakdown was aligned to a network breakdown in communication. The focus of all of the metaphors attempted to anchor to the brain a function of information processing.
Linked to the use of mechanical metaphors for human personhood was also the birth of analytical Science and the so-called ‘scientific method’. The influence of advancers in Mathematics also played key role in understanding the human brain as computational. The invention of the computer in the mid-twentieth century helped supersede all previous use of metaphor so that the computer metaphor came to be considered the best metaphor to describe human thinking. Some cite von Neumann’s The Computer and the Brain (1958) as the first to really equate the human brain to computing. Coupled to the use of the brain-as-computer metaphor is also the idea that consciousness is computational. For more read: Gigerenzer, G, and Goldstein, DG 1996, ‘Mind as computer: Birth of a metaphor’, Creativity Research Journal, vol. 9, no. 2 – 3, pp. 131 – 144.
Once the computer metaphor was anchored to the brain is quickly became normalised and pervasive as a way of understanding the brain. Coupled to this metaphor are other metaphors that have come to believed, about how brains work and what ‘mind’ is. Eg. we are ‘hard-wired’, thoughts are ‘programs’, nerves are ‘circuits’, ‘hardware’ and ‘software’, storage as memory, thinking is ‘calculating’. Similarly, human identity has also been transferred back to computing eg. that computers and AI ‘think’, that AI is ‘conscious’ and, ‘coding’ is ‘language’. Coupled to the use of the metaphor of brain-as-computer is also the dominance of Behaviourism in the twentieth century with mechanical ideas of stimulus/response, inputs/outputs.
How The Brain-as-Computer Metaphor Doesn’t Work
None of the use of the metaphor for brain-as-computer explains: dreaming, hallucination, learning, consciousness, free will, the development of language or the profoundly masculinist discourse associated with discrimination between male and female brains.
The computer-as-brain metaphor simply doesn’t explain the relationship of the brain to the body or all of the embodied systems that ‘think’ independently from the brain. The evidence of how embodied systems think is extensive: https://safetyrisk.net/essential-readings-neuroscience-and-the-whole-person/
Humans are a composite of many systems: nervous, endocrine, respiratory, integumentary (skin), muscular, digestive, cardiovascular, reproductive, cellular, urinary, feeling/emotional and skeletal systems. All of these systems act independently but also in an Inter-corporeal way and inter-affected ways on each other. Beliefs are also constructed by all these systems.eg. If one is traumatised or anxious, one’s perception of the world is distorted by heart rate, nerves, emotions, memories and feelings, all independently working seperate from the brain. Yet, the convenient metaphor and semiotic of the brain-as-computer persists. This is how myth is constructed, by metaphor confirmed in semiotics, this then shapes belief. More so, work by scholars such as Boroditsky (http://lera.ucsd.edu/papers/linguistic-relativity.pdf) demonstrate that language shapes belief.
Personhood and Embodiment
Recent research into the nature of embodied knowing is extensive. Indeed, such research is critical if we are to understand human judgement, perception, motivation, decision making and, learning.
At the foundation of the brain-as-computer metaphor is the distortion of human personhood. Indeed, one’s articulation of an ethic of personhood is foundational to understanding why humans do what they do. Indeed, why humans believe as they do.Much of human belief is shaped by the metaphors we live by.
Metaphors We Live By
We know from Lakoff and Johnson (Metaphors We Live By) that metaphor is the bedrock for shaping human belief. Strangely, the power of metaphor is anchored to a paradox. Metaphor describes something by what it is not. Such a curious form of language that is created from the gestural development of language (Fuchs etc). Yet the belief that the brain is a computer is pervasive in Western society.
However, this is not the way metaphor is used in music and song. In the most popular songs of all time thinking is not anchored to the brain. Indeed, the soul, heart, emotions, body and the world etc. are the metaphors used for thinking. Indeed, so much about life decisions made in love are about the human heart and gut. Further see Envisioning Risk (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/envisioning-risk-seeing-vision-and-meaning-in-risk/).
In SPoR, in our ethic of personhood (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/the-ethics-of-risk/) so much is about human enactivity, intercorporeality, Interaffectivity and interactivity and intracorporeality. None of this can be explained by the brain as computer metaphor. Nothing about human consciousness can be explained by AI (https://youtu.be/YnXUuyfPK2A?si=IB79l1GzFpaoLb5B). Indeed, expert physicists like Penrose explain why consciousness cannot be computational (https://youtu.be/iTVN6tFknCg?si=oQkomwvV6pjRD5th).
In SPOR, when we use the word ‘mind’ we think ‘person’, not brain. This makes a huge difference in understanding why people do as they do. Humans are much more than just inputs and outputs. Human thinking is not ‘hard wired’, programmable or computational.
Conclusion
So much of what we see in Western society about the brain-as-computer, is fostered by the semiotic and metaphors associated with the brain. Whilst convenient and popular, such a metaphor doesn’t explain human personhood, consciousness, intelligence or thinking.
Indeed, by believing the myth that the brain is a computer, all that follows understands thinking as computational and mechanical. Such constructs are misleading and simply reinforce a behaviourist worldview that doesn’t help understand human being and living. This translates into methods that don’t work, simply because human thinking doesn’t work this way.
And so we see so much of the brain-as-computer metaphor dominate the world of traditional risk and safety eg. https://safetyrisk.net/when-semiotics-show-your-real-agenda-in-safety/; https://safetyrisk.net/safety-is-not-all-in-the-brain/
What we need more than ever in tackling the challenges of risk is, a holistic understanding of personhood and an ethic that makes sense of human decision making.
Prof. Robert Long
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Fantastic blog Rob as always.